Center Journals

Book previews prepared by the Editorial Board: - Mahmoud Bakir, Forging National Identity: The Future of Syria (Doha/Beirut: Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, 2025), 248 pp. - Bouazza Al-Khallaki, The Value System in Moroccan Popular Culture: A Socio-Cultural Study of Folk Riddles in the Gharb Region (Casablanca: Afrique Orient, 2025), 300 pp. - Abdullah Alajmi et al. (eds.), Social Anthropology in the Arab World: The Fragmented History of an Uncomfortable Discipline (New York/ Oxford: Berghahn, 2025), 356 pp. - Mariusz Finkielsztein, The Sociology of Boredom (Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2025), 352 pp. - Ahmad Alzoubi, Diáspora Palestina na América Latina: Estudos sobre mídia e identidade (São Paulo: MEMO, 2025), 264 pp.

This article argues that the accelerating practice of pastoral settlement is one of the most ominous forms of Israeli settlement, and discusses its economic, social, and demographic impacts on Palestinian Bedouin and pastoral communities in the West Bank, particularly in Area C. It analyses the impact of land confiscation and displacement on livelihoods, especially for shepherds, livestock breeders, and farmers. The study highlights ongoing Israeli land violations aimed at consolidating the settler–colonial project to seek a comprehensive socio–economic understanding of the dynamics of the conflict. It combines interviews with relevant institutions and a field survey using a sample of Bedouin communities living in Area C. The study reveals that pastoral settlement has deprived herders of their traditional grazing lands, forcing them to change their livestock feeding patterns and increasing the costs of rearing livestock, all in the absence of effective support programs.

The genocide in Gaza has led to the complete collapse of the humanitarian system. The capacities of international actors have been crippled by direct targeting, coupled with systematic and large–scale prevention of aid entry. As a result, no functioning humanitarian system remains, and the overall response has collapsed. Localization of humanitarian action has thus become an imposed necessity shaped by the realities on the ground, rather than the outcome of a deliberate strategic vision. In this context, local organizations have emerged as virtually the only active responders. This study examines the structural constraints faced by local actors amid the extreme contraction of humanitarian space. The findings reveal that the core of the crisis lies in Israelʼs use of humanitarian action as a weapon of control, alongside severe shortages of resources and equipment, threats to the safety of aid workers, breakdowns in coordination channels, scarcity of funding, and the outright looting of humanitarian aid.

This report examines the economic and social characteristics of Palestinian women working in Israeli settlements, analysing income levels, poverty, and related issues. It utilizes field surveys and interviews, with a focus on women living in the communities of the Jordan Valley. The findings show that most women working in settlements are employed in low-wage jobs in the agriculture and food processing sectors, often due to limited job opportunities in the local market, wage gaps, and financial need. The report emphasizes the lost opportunity cost to the local economy and proposes policies that would promote long-term local employment opportunities.

Book title: The Fundamental Concept and Technology of Artificial Intelligence and its Evolution: From Computational Models to Machine Learning . Author: Ghazza Abderrazzak. Publisher: Doha/Beirut: Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies. Date of Publication: 2024. Pages: 448.

Book Title: Tribalism and Political Power in The Gulf: State- Building and National Identity in Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE . Author: Alanoud al-Sharekh & Courtney Freer. Publisher: London: I.B. Tauris. Date of Publication: 2021. Pages: 224.

This report examines the impact of Israeli checkpoints and movement restrictions in the north and central West Bank, focusing on lost working hours and additional fuel costs. Geographic data collected using GPS devices reveals that traffic decreased by 51.7% following Israel’s incursion into Gaza in October 2023. Waiting times at 14 military checkpoints, out of a random sample of 23 permanently reinforced checkpoints between cities in the northern and central West Bank, ranged from 15 to 50 minutes. The report estimates the daily loss of working hours at approximately 191,146, costing the Palestinian economy around $764,600 per day, or $16.8 million per month. The additional distances travelled to avoid checkpoints result in extra fuel consumption estimated at approximately $19,203 per day, or $6 million annually.

This special issue of Omran brings together contributions produced within a joint research project between the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS) and the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS). The project was carried out by MAS’s research team, in collaboration with external scholars, under the academic supervision of the ACRPS. The issue responds to the urgent need to move beyond fragmented treatments of Israeli settlement policies by advancing original, in-depth Palestinian analytical approaches. Collectively, the contributions seek to offer a comprehensive understanding of settlement expansion, its interconnected dimensions, and its multifaceted costs across the economic and social spheres of Palestinian life.

This article explores the various components of the Israeli settlement project in the West Bank, as well as the Israeli agencies and institutions that plan, implement, and support it, and the status of settlement activity under international law. It begins by highlighting the comprehensive nature of the settlement project as an integrated structure locked in a zero–sum relationship with the Palestinian space. Across four sections, the study presents a historical overview of the development of settlements in the West Bank; an outline of the project’s structural components; an analysis of the four Israeli bodies that administer settlement expansion and shape its legal and planning frameworks; and, finally, the position of international law on Israeli settlements.

This article examines Israeli settlement expansion in Jerusalem from both demographic and geographic perspectives, focusing on the isolation of surrounding Palestinian villages and towns from the city centre, as well as the isolation of their residents and suburbs from the rest of the Palestinian population. The article concentrates on Israeli settlement activity in the northern and northwestern parts of Jerusalem, analysing the economic, social, and demographic transformations of the villages of Biddu, Beit Iksa, Al–Ram, and Kafr Aqab. The article concludes with an overview of how settlement expansion policies have produced numerous economic, social, and demographic impacts, according to the specific geopolitical characteristics of each area and the colonial objectives behind these policies.